2012 TE511 Fuel leaking into gearbox?

[Pete Rocha]

I have a new 2012 TE511 that has about 300 miles on it. I first noticed the issue when I had oil coming out of the airbox. I cleaned the airbox and changed the oil and set it to the correct setting in the sight glass (I figured it was overfilled from the factory as some people have noted). I've only ridden about another 100 miles, and have noticed that the oil in the sight glass was way overfilled again. After checking I noticed that the oil has a real heavy gas smell. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas..like might I have a ring issue, could it be the injector leaking when engine is shut off, or is it just a normal break in thing? As a note I've only used it for street use since I've had it, and I am pretty easy on the engine..maybe too easy?

 

[dfeckel]

I can't speak from experience, since I don't own a 449/511, but I would be inclined to guess rings. Any smoke when running? I"m not sure how an injector could leak into the intake, but I suppose it's possible. If so, I would imagine some difficult starting on occasion due to plug fouling. Have you noticed this at all? Also, you might want to check your coolant level just for giggles to make sure you aren't getting coolant in the oil--that could lead to extra fluid volume in the bottom end. However, I would imagine your oil would look pretty milky if that were the case.

Regardless, I would be speaking to my dealer about a course of action that didn't void my warranty.

 

[Pete Rocha]

No, that's just it. No smoke when running, and it's not hard to start (which is what I would have expected if the rings were bad). I did check the coolant level and it was fine, with no milkyness to the oil itself. Thanks for the reply. I will be bringing this up with the dealer..especially since (yes, maybe stupidly) I bought an extended warranty on it.

 

[MorrisBetter]

I had a car (mid 80s MB) injector leak and leave gas in the oil. It filled one cylinder and caused it to lock when trying to start it. If your oil smells like fuel there's fuel in it. It's either a leaky injector or overly rich mixture. I just installed a JD tuner and fattened up the mid and main mixture. I went a little over-board and when I changed my oil it smelled of fuel. Not strongly, but there was an unmistakable whiff of gasoline.

On the other hand, I have also had the oil level in the sight glass (08 TE510) change dramatically from when I put oil in and after running the bike. I just measure the oil now. Still, if your oil smells like fuel, something is wrong.

 

[Rearwheelin]

I just talked with a master KTM mechanic about this today.... My 2012 is doing the same thing , after my first oil change at 100 mi the oil smelt like fuel and the oil I dumped measured over 1250cc, way over what is recommended max fill.... I refilled with full synthetic motorX thinking the top end is broken in.... What's happening is the rings are still sealing and the ring blow by is pushing oil out the breather into the airbox..... On the last ride I noticed quite a bit of oil loss I think in part to a series of large hill climbs possibly pushing extra oil out..... When rings seal there should be equal in and out pressure allowing the oil to drop back out of the breather.... He recommended I dump out the motorX and run oil base for longer and he has seen this on KTM's too... there are additives in some synthetics that won't let the rings break-in.... Semi synthetic golden spectral 20-50 was suggested by George at up-tite racing and said it takes 20hrs to break this motor in..... I really think it's lousey to have the engine oil dump all over a perfectly oiled airfilter then drip all over the engine , I sure hope this is short term as I am sure it is since everyone seems to be having the very same issues....I am going to try and remove the air box intake spigot to try and relieve some ofthe vacuum pressure that could be helping oil travel up the crank case breather..... Good luck to everyone

 

[Pete Rocha]

I just talked with a master KTM mechanic about this today.... My 2012 is doing the same thing , after my first oil change at 100 mi the oil smelt like fuel and the oil I dumped measured over 1250cc, way over what is recommended max fill.... I refilled with full synthetic motorX thinking the top end is broken in.... What's happening is the rings are still sealing and the ring blow by is pushing oil out the breather into the airbox..... On the last ride I noticed quite a bit of oil loss I think in part to a series of large hill climbs possibly pushing extra oil out..... When rings seal there should be equal in and out pressure allowing the oil to drop back out of the breather.... He recommended I dump out the motorX and run oil base for longer and he has seen this on KTM's too... there are additives in some synthetics that won't let the rings break-in.... Semi synthetic golden spectral 20-50 was suggested by George at up-tite racing and said it takes 20hrs to break this motor in..... I really think it's lousey to have the engine oil dump all over a perfectly oiled airfilter then drip all over the engine , I sure hope this is short term as I am sure it is since everyone seems to be having the very same issues....I am going to try and remove the air box intake spigot to try and relieve some ofthe vacuum pressure that could be helping oil travel up the crank case breather..... Good luck to everyone

I understand that from a oil in the airbox issue (I had that too and have taken care of it), the the physical volume of the oil(liquid) in the crankcase increasing. Then again, maybe what you are saying is that due to blowby because of rings not being sealed i'm getting unburnt fuel into the gear box..and that could be. Did want to note that I finally got around to putting by JD tuner on it and wow what a nice difference..finally got my damned low speed stall issues corrected and finally let me run the stock muffler on the street without the spark arrestor in it. Sounds much better and definately runs better.

 

[Motosportz]

Can you take it back to your dealer? it obviously should not be doing that. They need to look into it for you as the bike is new.

 

[Pete Rocha]

Yes I can..especially since I did buy an extended warranty on it (as i wasn't planning on using it for racing). I have been in contact with them and they gave me the "we've never encountered that problem before" stuff. I do wish they were local, but it's a 100 mile drive to get to them, so I was hoping on not having to as I have to get a truck to haul it etc. I was just hoping someone had seen this before and it was a stupid easy fix. I'm still thinking it has a bad injector that is leaking when fuel system is still pressurized and engine is not running (i've had cars that have done that and flooded cylinders..as MorrisBetter mentioned). I did make sure to test my "theory" by running engine, shutting it off, waiting about 5-10 seconds and then restarting..most of the time I have noticable puff of black smoke come out..guessing from raw fuel in the cylinder.

 

[Rearwheelin]

I did notice on my last ride my oil in the airbox has stopped, atleast it seems not to have dumped on the motor..... I ran octaine boost also with top cyclender lube additives.... I think it's "Real octane boost by Lucas "..... Maybe pump 91 octane is the cause lol

 

[Pete Rocha]

ha ha...I would hope not..I guess I can go to my local 76 service station and put in 100 octane race fuel..ha.

But on a serious note, so that I can try to give a picture of the "severity" of the issue:

1. Did oil change on bike at around 200 mile range.
2. Set new oil level in sight glass to 1/3 way up.
3. Bike reached 310 miles, oil level was checked, and it was over the top level in the sight glass!

Since I don't have a graduated cylinder to measure what the actual volume increase was I can't give a precise volume increase, but it obviously wasn't a "slight gas blow by because of rings not being broken in"...I mean, unless i'm mistaken, that is a very large volume of fuel added to the oil...especially since it was only a hair over 100 miles, and no hard riding.

 

[Rearwheelin]

I agree seems like it's building volume with the fuel.... I changed my factory oil fill at about 90 miles and measured what I dumped out , it was over 100cc max fill.... The funny thing was in the book it's stated max fill is 1150cc and with the bike on it's side stand the oil started coming out the fill hole before 1100cc ! .... I'm not 100% convinced that my octain boost has curred the problem. My thinking is the faster combustion of the higher octane along with added ring seal of the top cylinder lube might equal less ring blow by.... I'm crossing my fingers , I really don't want to re-route the crankcase breather just yet.

 

[XLEnduroMan]

I read in a dirt mag of a issue with a Honda CRF (I think) that giving it any throttle at startup will contaminate the oil with gas. When starting your 511 do you keep the throttle completly closed until it is fired up? I haven't had this problem with our Mikuni EFI Husky's but after reading that I make sure to leave the throttle closed when starting.

 

[Pete Rocha]

Yes, I do not touch the throttle at all...well other than having my hand on it when pushing the start button...

 

[Pete Rocha]

I agree seems like it's building volume with the fuel.... I changed my factory oil fill at about 90 miles and measured what I dumped out , it was over 100cc max fill.... The funny thing was in the book it's stated max fill is 1150cc and with the bike on it's side stand the oil started coming out the fill hole before 1100cc ! .... I'm not 100% convinced that my octain boost has curred the problem. My thinking is the faster combustion of the higher octane along with added ring seal of the top cylinder lube might equal less ring blow by.... I'm crossing my fingers , I really don't want to re-route the crankcase breather just yet.

I saw the same thing on mine too. When I got it, it was way overfilled. Oil pouring out of the fill hole, and definitely caused oil to blow into the airbox.

 

[Rearwheelin]

You said you fixed the oil getting in the airbox...what did you do ?

 

[waserman]

If you are getting that much oil in the gas, then it has to be thining out the oil and compromising the ability to lubricate all of the necessary bearings , bushings ect. I think that if you change the oil and then let the bike sit and your site glass is becoming increasingly more full then it is leaking by somewhere, and making it's way to the crankcase. If the bike was carburated it would be the float valve not seating on a FI bike I'm not sure, unless your tank vent isn't venting and the heat from the motor is causing the tank to pressurize and leaking past the fuel injector somehow. Take it back to the dealer before it hydro locks or wears out your engine prematurely, something is not right. The gas will displace the oil and settle to the bottom of the crankcase, if the pickup for these motors is at the lowest point(which makes sense)then your first few seconds of running at start up is pumping gas/diluted oil to all your bearings(not good). just my 2 cents

 

[leppis]

I had this problem also. I was told that this is quite common problem in certain situations. Too rich mixture causes this if you drive high altitude or in cold weather. I still have to verify, as I haven't got time to go riding after oil change. Earlier I was riding in -5 to -20 celsius. Bike was in low power mode, no O2 sensor and Acra installed and the bike seems to be a bit rich mix. I'll put O2 sensor back and go testing.
I think this is quite obvious reason for this.

 

[Bobby]

We're onto something here, by chance was the charcoal emmissions cannister removed and for some reason the fuel tank vent hooked up to the manifold vacuum? Or is the charcoal cannister still on the bike and perhaps filled with fuel? Those charcoal cannisters can clog easily if raw fuel gets into them and at that point the charcoal cannister can fill up with fuel due to vacuum from intake and once all of the vapor space is gone raw fuel will get sucked into intake after the throttle body.

 

[Slowpoke]

Assuming it's a leaky injector, are these supposed to remain pressurized after being shut off? If yes, then a leaky injector could be the problem.
If no, then there could be an issue with the fuel pump, or the fuel pump controls?
The other unexplained issue is that if there is that much raw fuel getting into the cyl., the bike should effectively be flooded & take quite a bit of cranking to get it started(assuming it doesn't hydrolock 1st.). Nobody has indicated this to be the case.

Definitely not an issue with rings, as rings are pretty much done all the seating they're gonna do before 50 miles. Even on perfectly seated rings, raw liquid fuel will still leak past the ring end gaps over a period of time.
IMO the engine oil should be sent for analysis to see how much fuel is getting in there %age wise.

 

[HUSKYnXJnWI]

(this sounds like too much fuel for it to be a rich mixture or fuel getting past the rings)
SOunds like a new bike- I'd be talking to a dealer for help for sure,,,, but here's where I'd focus:

We're onto something here, by chance was the charcoal emissions canister removed and for some reason the fuel tank vent hooked up to the manifold vacuum? Or is the charcoal canister still on the bike and perhaps filled with fuel? Those charcoal canisters can clog easily if raw fuel gets into them and at that point the charcoal canister can fill up with fuel due to vacuum from intake and once all of the vapor space is gone raw fuel will get sucked into intake after the throttle body.

Good call Bobby-
1-PETE do you have the Charcoal Canister removed? If no continue/if yes go to 2. (canister could be full of fuel- and with a full fuel tank you could be pushing fuel into your intake once pressurized. Unplug the canister and dump the fuel- (you might conciser removing- but if you keep it due to Emission Requirements- know that this can happen and check- also leave an air gap at the top of your fuel tank on refills)
2-What do you have on your gas cap vent? I am not familiar with the 449/511s vent system (I assume its different than standard set ups) If you removed the carcoal canister but kept the stock one way valve.... remove it. It can force the tank to build pressure and cause problems-
If none of these look like the problem- go to 3

Assuming it's a leaky injector, are these supposed to remain pressurized after being shut off? If yes, then a leaky injector could be the problem.
.

3- Although this is a brand new bike- we're running out of possibilities so a leaky fuel injector makes sense- The system is pressurized by the pump to around 40psi- ALL EFI systems are to hold pressure once the bike is shut down. So if the bike were not running leaky injector would allow fuel to pass until the pressure dropped. Also, it would probably let unmonitored fuel pass when running (which may or may not go unnoticed). TO TEST- you would hook up a fuel pressure tester between the pump outlet and the injector. "Prime the pump" see what the pressure is once leveled off- then watch the gauge- it should hold that pressure- if it drops you are seeing the pressure be released through a leak- verify there are none in you "test setup" and if not its your injector. It doesn't hold that Prime pressure indefinitely- the regulate and check valve in the pump may let some pressure return but should be pretty stable.

Someone did this and took pictures a few years back if I find it I'll post it.... EDIT:FOUND IT:: <<TTpostbyOverloadTT>> although he wasn't doing the test for diagnosis he did establish norms....